I received my mincer/stuffer in the post a couple of weeks ago, but only last night had a chance to take it out of the box. I decided to try a small quantity of product before posting my findings, and asking for comments/guidance.

My metric scales were out of batteries, so i used my good old greengrocer's ones.

I re-minced the pork along with the bacon and onion, so it was nice and fine, then mixed the other ingredients in by hand, After soaking the casings, and washing them through, I threaded them on the nozzle and started filling them. It really was so easy, so no need to go into detail there. I was a little concerned that there was a lot of air in the sausages, but I easily got rid of it when linking. I fried them, and I'm pleased to say they didn't split, but after 15 minutes I decided to finish them in the oven as they were quite dense. Indeed the texture was very dense, but also very fine, but there was little taste from the bacon and onion. I'm hoping that my sausage sandwich for lunch today will see a little more of the flavour, and again more at breakfast tomorrow.

Plans for the weekend - Italian style tomorrow, to serve with creamy mash rather than polenta. I'm guessing garlic, oregano and a little dried chilli. I'm away next weekend, but then planning merguez, as I've found a butcher who can source well-aged, British mutton. then, if it's looking like it will be cold for a long spell, I'll cure some salami and chorizo.

I've come across the density issue before too. I found that when meat is freshly minced, mixed, stuffed, and cooked all within about an hour, the sausages tend to be much lighter than if you cooked them the next day. I suspect the sausage has alot more air in it and over time settles. Also, ingreddients like salt (and I suspect rusk) and vinegar tend to cause a binding effect on the meat - making it denser too.

Myself I use rusk from Franco, this seem to initally absorb the moisture when prepairing. But then release the liquid when cooking. making a more suculent sausage. I have also found that Rusk is a great cooking ingredient to have in the house I also use it in Kebabs and meatballs with the same effect.

I think I'll order some rusk then. On Saturday I made the Italian style; lots of garlic, black pepper and oregano. I also added a load of sun dried tomato puree, which gave the sausage a nice richness. I decided to make pasta, so had the sausage with fresh tagliatele and a rich onion and red-wine sauce. However, I made a big mistake. Instead of twisting into links I curled the sausage and cooked it whole. The tiniest split appeared and all of the moisture leached out. So while the meat was tasty it was incredibly dry. I will be linking in future!